


Sleep Cycles

by 80000_Bees



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Recovery, Trauma, bucky has naps, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3924634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/80000_Bees/pseuds/80000_Bees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's working on sleeping through the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Cycles

It’s 5:25AM, and Bucky still sleeps.

He had two nightmares earlier in the night – fists tangled in the sheets, left arm creaking, mouth twisted open but not actually screaming – but it was only two. There was a time when he could barely close his eyes, let alone sleep, and would roam the tower for days until he would black out in Steve’s living room, or kitchen, arm clanging against the floor as he slumped over. And even then the nightmares wouldn’t stop – he’d get an hour or two of exhausted sleep before he’d start shuddering, arm clicking.

But it’d been almost a year since those times. Now Bucky sleeps so deep he’s almost unwakeable – they’ve had to change the pitch and volumes of the alarms in Steve’s apartment after Bucky slept through a fire drill. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t shown how much he’d recovered – to be able to sleep a full night, and not jolt into tense wakefulness at the slightest noise. Steve had to go drag him out of the apartment that day.

Sometimes Bucky will fall asleep on the couch, head in Steve’s lap while they continued their quest to catch up on seventy years of cinema. Steve can feel Bucky’s breathing slow to nothing, his pulse taper away to the point where Steve keeps one hand on Bucky’s chest just to make sure he’s still alive. It might be a side-effect of all the stuff Bucky’s been through – Steve doesn’t remember him ever being this still, back in their Brooklyn apartment, all those decades ago.

Maybe Bucky is playing catch-up on seventy years of sleeplessness. Seventy years of cryo, on and off. Steve is the only other person that knows how bad a bed of ice can be, but at least he’d only had to go under and wake up once. It hadn’t been cryo. It hadn’t been what Bucky had gone through, more times than anyone was sure about. It’d taken Steve a while to realise the shadows under Bucky’s eyes were stamped into his skin, not painted on.

But the shadows have almost faded away now – Bucky’s finally catching up on sleep. His sleeping heartbeat is a little faster under Steve’s fingertips nowadays.

It’s 5:25AM, and Steve knows that if he wakes Bucky up now he’ll be groggy and grumpy, and he’ll want to go back to sleep.

From the outside, it doesn’t look like much of a milestone, but for Bucky and Steve it’s something they’ll smile about with shy incredulity – once Bucky’s had his morning coffee.


End file.
